Set in Ireland in 1981 concerning the hunger strike against England, to acknowledge the prisoners as political prisoners.
There is very little dialogue throughout this film, but the dialogue that is present - is very meaningful. For example: a scene in which Bobby, the main character is sitting across from a priest in which he begins to discuss his plan to orchestrate a hunger strike in the prisons. This dialogue is vital, otherwise his behavior throughout the rest of the film would be harder to understand.
I loved McQueen's usage of sound in the film, all of the sounds are man made or natural. By man made, he uses an emphasis on collective sound, or sounds created using many people in a unified fashion. The first scene in the film, prior to the title being shown, is an abstract a close up of a woman beating something against the ground, as it pans out you realize the sound is collective and numerous people are all beating the same object against the ground in unison. There is something very powerful about being able to show a unification in man, and McQueen uses that power to his advantage in this film.
He follows again with another collective sound when the SWAT are beating their clubs against the fiberglass shields as they await for the prisoners to be released.
The only natural sound in the film is that of birds, which is an absolutely beautiful scene.
McQueen overlays these images of birds flying about and chirping as Bobby begins to wretch and it becomes evident that he's dying. I thought that using the sound of Bobby along with the sound of the birds was very important, especially in the scene where he dies and the birds show up again - making no noise. Through this, the sound of the birds represented a lot of what Bobby was trying to create by imposing the hunger strike.
McQueen did a lot of close-ups in this film, what was interesting about them, is that almost all of them are of the hands of individuals. He does close ups, further in the film, with the lesions on Bobby's body from being beaten and the bed sores toward the end of his life.
Through this, there is a distinctive emphasis on damage of the human body and possibly the primal aspects of the human spirit. He shows guards soaking their bloodied knuckles after beating a prisoner, and the head trauma on a prisoner after being beaten with a club.
These men, the prisoners, are a unified force all following Bobby's actions.
For example: the collective way in which all of the prisoners made a paste out of old food and waste to plug up the bottom of the door, while creating a spout - and then poured out a bed pan full of urine into the halls. Also displayed, when the guards mockingly gave the prisoners "civilian" clothes, and once Bobby displayed rage in his cell by breaking chairs and tables - the other prisoners followed suit - in their cells.
I really enjoyed a scene where the janitor was cleaning up the urine, and the way that the light framed the hall way. Doors to the cells on both walls and a long corridor, with strips of light and strips of dark framing the hallway as the janitor made his way from one end, to the other. Most of the light in the movie was dramatic within the cells themselves, the only light coming from a grated window - and very clinical outside of the cells.
The clinical feeling of the rest of the jail added to the reflection of these men as jail dehumanized them. They were forced to hide important information, like pictures of their girlfriends inside of their bodies. But not even their bodies were safe anymore; the guards would drag them out of the cells by their hair, kicking and biting, fighting with the numerous guards. Punching them and cutting off all of their hair, and then forcing them into a tub, where the guards vigorously cleaned them with brushes used to clean the dirt off of floors.
However, the light was neither warm nor light for most of the film, but once Bobby began to deteriorate the light became colder and bluish.
Another technique McQueen used, other than close ups, were blurring out scenes. He had a few scenes that he blurred out almost to the point of abstraction, where only colors and vague outlines indicated what you were viewing. He would pair up the blur with an extreme acuteness to the hands too. Where the scene would be blurry, but someones hand would come out and be perfectly clear, as a close up.
McQueen divided the screen once during a visual shot, distinctly. Sometimes he would use man made structures (pillars, doors etc.) to break up a scene, but he only had one where he not only broke it - but he completely changed the lighting. When the SWAT is beating the prisoners, one young man who seems anxious and unnerved by the situation at the beginning - releases all of his negative and unknown feelings onto a prisoner by beating him relentlessly. The same prisoner is then seen on the right side of the screen in a blue light, hiding in a cell, weeping. Where as the rest of the men are on the left side of the screen, taking up over half of the division in warm yellow light - still creating that unified sound of beating.
Once Bobby begins his hunger strike McQueen started implementing different visual techniques, like the birds I previously mentioned. But also, he shows us a few scenes of what Bobby sees, as though we are viewing the people in the room through Bobby's eyes. I liked this, because there was a sense of actually seeing through his eyes as he looks at his mother while he's dying. He struggles to open his eye, and then keep it open. By doing this his vision is blurred and fades in and out, and I felt that McQueen did a really great job with this perspective in specific. He also overlaps Bobby with images of his son experiencing life outside of the visiting room where he visits Bobby.
I really really enjoyed this movie even if parts of it were hard to watch.
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